Sunday, February 15, 2009

Commonly misused/misspelled words and phrases (Part 79)

It's been a while, but here are some more words to watch out for:

Verbage vs. Verbiage

Wrong: We need to strip some of this verbage out of the proposal.

Right: We need to strip some of this verbiage out of the proposal.


Verbiage (VER-bee-ij) can be either a profusion of meaningless words, or a manner of expressing oneself in writing. Verbage (VER-bij) is simply a misspelling and mispronunciation of verbiage.


From whence vs. Whence

Wrong: Be gone demon! Return from whence you came!

Right: Be gone demon! Return whence you came!


Because whence means “from when,” saying from whence is redundant.


More soon. I promise!


Mark.

1 comment:

KC said...

The phrase "from whence" has been used since the 13th century and by such authors as Shakespeare aand Defoe. I hardly think that we can call them mistaken.